Monthly Archives: March 2011

The following is a guest post by Cherise Scott, secretariat of the Stop TB Partnership Working Group on New TB Drugs. This post is the first in a series of special commentaries and interviews in honor of World TB Day, which is this Thursday, March 24.

“As we turn back and review the past year, it’s apparent just how significant the shift in strategy has been on the part of the TB research and development community in the search for new regimens to treat this scourge of mankind…”

Last week, the Center for Global Health Policy hosted three Fogarty International fellows in Washington, DC, and escorted them to the Hill to meet with key legislators with influence over global health programs and appropriations. Dr. Akao, a native Ugandan that has been practicing medicine since 2000 and now works at the Joint Clinical Research Center on integrated healthcare, describes the difference U.S. investment in the global AIDS epidemic has made in Uganda in this video clip.

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Kevin M. DeCock, MD, director of the Center for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), speaks with Science Speaks about the fight against TB. In his own words, “TB remains very important. Here are a few research priorities for TB, and I think you can classify the research in different ways: operational, developmental, and epidemiological. The first question, an operational one, is how do we best use antiretroviral drugs? If we use them to prevent HIV, that’s very important because we will also prevent HIV-associated TB. If we use them in people infected with HIV, the question is when do we start therapy? How early to give the best maximum TB prevention benefit? …

Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, is director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In that role he oversees the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, spanning the spectrum from basic to clinical research. Dr. Collins, a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of […]

Michael P. Johnson, MD, is deputy director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is an expert on HIV/AIDS issues and has worked on both global and domestic projects, including positions as the U.S. Health and Human Services’ liaison to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the […]

The following is a compilation of recent articles and news pieces making headlines in HIV/TB and global health. HIV transmission via breast milk lower with daily nevirapine: A recent Medscape article reviews findings from the HPTN 046 trial, which looked at more than 1500 babies breastfed by their HIV-infected mothers while receiving daily nevirapine. The […]

Kevin M. DeCock, MD, is director of the Center for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta. Among his past positions are Director of CDC Kenya and Director of the World Health Organization’s Department of HIV/AIDS. John Donnelly talked with Dr. DeCock Thursday about the large numbers of […]

In a presentation to staffers from the U.S. Agency on International Development (USAID) and the World Health Organization last week, Dr. Liz Corbett presented on early diagnosis and prevention of tuberculosis and HIV in the community. A clinical researcher specializing in infectious diseases who has been based in Africa for more than a decade, Dr. […]

Quarraisha Abdool Karim, PhD, is an infectious diseases epidemiologist whose research involves understanding the evolving HIV epidemic in South Africa; factors influencing acquisition of HIV infection in adolescent girls; and sustainable strategies to introduce antiretroviral medicines in resource-constrained settings. She is an associate professor of Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health […]